Call Sign: CHIMERA
by RedHerringBlueHerring
Summary: Post Season 2. Outside Terminal City, Seattle PD and an armor battalion of the National Guard are ready to blow TC to hell. Meanwhile, the prodigal CO returns, White and the snake cult continue their media assault against the transgenic population, and a CIA agent begins to investigate the radio call sign, 'Chimera'. Eventual Max/Alec (sorry M/L shippers)


DISCLAIMER: Dark Angel does not belong to me. Any resemblance in name or description of original character to any real world figure is entirely unintentional. The plot is cobbled together with some of my own original plots but is heavily based on the season 2 DVD commentary where the writers reveal how they were looking at progressing the show, and on story lines which were developed by Dark Angel's regular writers, and may have made up season 3 if the show hadn't been cancelled.

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><p>Chapter 1 - Shawshanked<p>

The first team had taken the National Guardsmen by surprise, ambushing them as they turned a blind corner and knocking the two men out cold.

The team had a specific purpose, and they got to it quickly. The two soldiers were disarmed, stripped of their uniforms, and their hands and feet bound.

X5-418 reached down, removed the headset from an ordinaries' ear and hooked it over his own. When he spoke, it was directed into a hand-held radio. "_Shawshank, this is Coburn One Eight. I have two sewer rats. Over."_

"_Coburn One Eight, rodger that. One Eight, be advised, McQueen reports possible movement in the south-east of your square. You are clear to complete objective, then, ah… go ahead and egress right from JA9. How copy?"_

"_Copy all, Shawshank. Complete objective and put eyes on. Wilco, out."_ X5-418's words were followed by an irritated sigh as the rest of the Guardsman's uniform made forceful contact with the back of his head.

"Heads up, Vonn," came the late warning from the second member of the team.

Vonn turned and surveyed the organised chaos of Coburn strike team and his supporting tech team, Tango One. With the exception of the two accompanying transhumans, the four X-5's were part of his old team at Manticore and he knew he could count on them to keep their heads. Cade, Yams, and Faith had branched out, watching the end of the sewer tunnel and glancing around the blind corner they were heading around next. Suki was already further ahead in their objective than him - pulling her own clothes off and replacing them with the Guardsman's own. When she noticed his gaze, she turned her back and gave him a one fingered salute. Gary, a stout transhuman who looked more like a cross between a rat and a fishmonger than a technical genius, had unpacked a box he had carried behind him and was now rummaging around, pulling small, disc-shaped objects from the box and setting them carefully to the side. The second transhuman, Sol, was using his claws to create a hole in the sewer roof.

Vonn pulled the Guardsman uniform on, tucked his favourite Glock into the back of his new fatigues, reholstered the Guardsman's Beretta, and swung the discarded assault rifle up so it rested against his shoulder.

Now they looked like National Guardsmen themselves, the next lot they encountered would be so much easier to take down.

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><p>Max listened to Vonn and TC's communications silently. She had taken a headset instead of a handheld, and it allowed her to monitor the communications of the four strike teams constantly, even as she came up behind her own National Guardsman, wrapped an arm around his neck, and kept it there until he passed out. Max lowered the man to the ground with an insincere 'sorry', crouched beside the body and turned to make sure the second and third Guardsmen had been taken out of action.<p>

Reed was already bent and removing the second Guardsman's uniform. Beside him, her sister Syl was strangling the third. Max watched him turn purple with fondness, finding it oddly sentimental to see her long lost sister with arms fastened around the neck of the flailing soldier.

The Guardsman's eyes finally rolled up in to the back of his head and Syl grinned, opened her arms wide and let the man slump to the ground. She blew her long hair, mussed in the struggle, out of her face. "It's good to be back."

"The novelty will wear off real soon, trust me," came the voice from behind them. Alec lowered the assault rifle he'd liberated from a soldier earlier, came to stand next to Syl, and surveyed the still purple man impassively. "Sewers… asphyxiating dudes. Ever since I met Max that's like a regular Tuesday night. Pretty soon you'll be begging for your own little patch of grass to watch grow just to break the monotony."

Max paused in unstrapping the soldier's body armour and looked up with pure scepticism. "Whatever. It's been three days since anyone let him outside and he's been scratching at the door the whole time."

"And you've been just a ray of sunshine, Max," Alec said, deceptively pleasant. He bent and picked up the discarded Beretta Syl's Guardsman had drawn before she'd front-kicked him in the solar plexus, checked to see if Syl was watching - she wasn't - and tested the weight of the weapon. He made a face - _huh, not bad -_ and swapped his Beretta out for the new one. He stood, glanced between the three unconscious National Guardsmen and the end of the tunnel he'd been tasked to watch, then slouched against the wall and addressed the room at large. "Three days under siege in twenty blocks of shitty Seattle wasteland, living on crackers and spam. Call me crazy, but I was actually _happy_ when Max suggested this little field trip, even if it means punching my ticket for the next in Max's long line of sewer adventures." His tone rose a little at the end, buoyed by false excitement and sarcasm.

Max wrenched a shoelace undone, finding herself with even less patience than usual for Alec's chronic monologuing. "Keep whining about it and you'll find a lot more punched than just your ticket."

"Hey, I wasn't complaining. Just wondering when I can start cashing in my sewer frequenting points. Figure I must've earnt enough for at least a gallon of half-price gas by now."

The second boot fell to the ground with a thump, soldier's foot still secured inside, and Max looked up, deadly serious. "How about I start the beatdown with your mouth?" Her expression darkened as she took in the sight of Alec, one shoulder leant against the stone wall and watching the activity of the others with the same skill he usually showed in avoiding any kind of work if he could help it. "Shouldn't you be _watching our backs?"_

His eyes flicked to her. "I am, Max," he said, mock offended, then pushed off the wall in the manner of someone much aggrieved. He turned and headed over to the sewer junction they'd came from so she couldn't see that his parting words were delivered with a smirk. "Shouldn't you be getting undressed already?"

Max's unimpressed look was wasted on the transgenic's back, so she turned it on Syl, who had muffled a snort - barely - at the exchange.

Syl shrugged, unfazed. "So…" she said, drawing the syllable out as she watched the other transgenic schlepp it back to the junction. "... Ben's clone. Makes you wonder about nature versus nurture, right?"

"Maybe." Max spared a glance at Alec - he was at the junction now. The vacant expression as he surveilled the tunnel and careless way he was holding his rifle made him look like a paradoxical copy of Rodin's Thinker. "Or Manticore just cloned him from a bag of dicks."

The blonde didn't bother muffling another snort.

The two X-5's finished undressing the National Guardsmen and bound them with zip ties, then redressed in the Guardsmen's uniforms. Max stood, rearranged the headset on her ear, and scanned the tunnel. Their tech team was busy with the nerd work, and Reed had already moved to the front of the sewer tunnel to join point with Ace. She raised a hand to her headset. _"Shawshank, this is Oh-Niner. We have our party hats on and are ready to party."_

The reply from Luke, back in Terminal City, came flat and static in her ear. _"Oh-Niner, copy that. McQueen and Luger await your approach at rendezvous."_

Max signalled the team over and they fell into a loose circle. This was where they left their tech team behind; Ace would stay to provide suppressive fire if the tech team had to make a speedy exit. "From here on," she said, "we're just ordinary troops returning to base. No hardware, got it?" Reed nodded once - Max had stressed this point for what seemed like a hundred times. Alec gave her a sideways _are you kiddin' me?_ look and Syl flashed her a sarcastic 'peace' sign. Max rolled her eyes. "Let's move out."

The National Guard had stationed troops in the sewer the first night of the siege. They were using teams to both patrol the sewers and keep a lookout over the sewer exits closest to TC. Max knew that the soldiers would be communicating back to base but Logan had lacked the equipment to monitor it after White had burned Eyes Only and all his electronics. While that meant that they were flying blind, it hadn't meant that they were going in unprepared. Logan had supplied schematics of the sewer system instead, and Max had studied them until she knew exactly where she was going, blindfolded. They moved through the sewers toward the rendezvous at Junction PA7 with ease, stacking up into a tactical train before each corner and exploding around it with barely a sound. They passed several troops, hog-tied and wearing only their drawers, that the teams before them had taken out of action.

The next turn was a 'U' shape and Reed, on point, peeked around the corner, gripping his rifle tightly against his body to stop it from swinging out in the open. Instead of clearing the corner he drew back. The barrel of an assault rifle, pressed to his temple, followed the movement.

"Funnily enough," came the voice from the direction of the barrel, "I remember disarming you in a similar fashion during a field exercise in... South Korea, was it?"

Reed winced and looked a little sheepish.

Max mouthed a curse and unclenched her fists, recognising the lazy voice immediately. Her worst suspicions were confirmed when the bane of the last two days of her existence appeared.

Oblivious to the supremely pissed look on Max's face, Vonn gave his rifle a careless little swing at Reed and continued on. "Of all the strange occurrences between then and now, the most surprising is that your inattention hasn't managed to finish you off." He searched Reed's now scowling face. After a moment, he said, "Are we sure he wasn't adopted?"

Max made a frustrated noise in her throat. The former team leader, Vonn, was an even bigger pain in her ass than Alec. Which, in hindsight, hadn't surprised her when she'd found out that Vonn was _Alec's_ former team leader. He'd managed to make more enemies in the two days he'd been in TC than should've been humanly possible, but Alec had assured her that he was, deep down, a pretty good guy. Regardless, Max stepped forward, jerked the rifle - where it had still been pointing at Reed's temple - from Vonn's hands and shoved the whole bundle, sling and all, at Vonn's chest. Vonn's hands came up to clutch the bundle with a faintly surprised look. "One more stunt like that," she said sweetly, eyes wide, "I'll yank your head outta your ass and use it a stress ball." Her face fell and she added a scathing, _"Moron,"_ then stalked past Vonn and around the corner.

The corner of Vonn's mouth lifted. He watched Syl and Reed trail after Max, and then turned to Alec. "How odd for one's expectations to be challenged so thoroughly," he said, sounding thoughtful. "I'd always thought the 09'ers were pacifists."

Alec chuckled, threw an arm around Vonn's shoulders. "Trust me, buddy. Say that to her face, she'll kick you in the jewels."

There were two unconscious troops in the point of the 'U' junction that Vonn and two others had incapacitated. Suki was finishing zip-tying a Guardsman's ankles; Cade was on watch. The rest of Vonn's team was nowhere to be seen. At the arrival of Max, Suki dusted her hands and stood. "Heard these guys heading back from patrol," she reported. "Thought we'd do you a favour and clear the approach."

Max could've handled the two National Guards solo and ordinarily would have said as much; but over the last few days of being jammed up with the seven hundred other freaks that Seattle wanted to nail to a flaming 'X', Max knew the other transgenic was just watching her back. She bit back a snarky response and said 'thanks' instead, then stepped past Suki and scanned the scene. The two troops looked to have been taken down by surprise - there were no obvious signs of struggle and their radios, weapons and headsets had been piled just out of reach. Max kicked a radio away with her boot, knowing it was possible that the troops were supposed to use those radios to check in at predetermined intervals, and it was equally possible that one of those intervals had already been missed. "If these guys are expected back at base it won't be long before someone sends out a search party," she said. "Let's get this done."

"Got it."

The larger group moved more quickly to the rendezvous at Junction PA7. Weaver and the rest of Vonn's team were waiting at the foot of a rusted ladder when they arrived.

Here the junction branched off the main sewer line and led to a small annex, the ladder, and the sewer access door above. The door opened to an underpass, and was the closest surface exit to the National Guard's Eastern perimeter. The transgenics had identified this particular junction as their easiest access and exit point, both for its close proximity to the National Guard's base, and because Colonel Vinzet's tent was less than a klick inside.

Noticing the absence of the white-blonde X-5, Cleo, Max searched around the annex and then up. Cleo, hanging from the ladder above their heads, gave a jaunty wave, then let go of the ladder rung and dropped the twenty-foot to the ground, landing on all fours like a cat.

Weaver shook his head at the unnecessary display. "It's been quiet, except for a patrol we heard coming up near B7." He turned to Vonn. "You get your guys?"

Vonn raised a quizzical eyebrow. "We did," he said, as if Weaver had asked him if the sky were still blue, then gave that look that Max had come to recognise as the precursor to the launching of another verbal pearl that would invariably bump up the membership of the Vonn-Is-A-Dick Club.

Max's accusing finger stopped him right there. "Whatever it is you're about to say," she said, punctuating her words with a jabbing motion at his chest, "_don't."_ Vonn's mouth stayed open for a full second before he closed it with an indulgent smile that frayed another of Max's already frayed nerves. She shouldered past him with a bitchy side-eye, then peered up the shaft that housed the ladder, wrestling away the urge to bounce Vonn's face off every rung. "Alright." She gritted her teeth. "Time to bring the party to the Colonel."

Max pulled the sling of the rifle tighter and then slung it over her head and shoulder. She pulled the sling slightly tighter so that the rifle wouldn't dangle freely and then began the climb. The ladder groaned as Alec, Reed, Syl and then Vonn and his team joined her on the ladder. Max reached the small platform at the top and unwound her rifle as Alec climbed up beside her.

Alec waited until she had righted the sling, jammed his hands in his pockets, and glanced at the rifle pointedly. "You plannin' on using that to club someone to death?"

Max looked down at her weapon. Alec knew that guns weren't her thing, and it was a bone that Alec liked to dig up occasionally. Max had actually removed the rounds from the magazine before she'd taken the weapon, so clubbing was about all it was good for. The sling, however, might make a good garrote. "Maybe," Max hedged. "You plannin' on opening the door or just standing in front of it?"

"You know I don't make the plans around here, Max," he said, nevertheless obliging and shifting to face the door. "You've got control of all the lemmings." The hand wheel on the door ground through its gears and Alec forced it open. The door hinges squealed as the door swung slightly inward. Harsh yellow light from a streetlights outside fell across Alec's grimace, then he pulled the door fully open, the door protesting horrendously with noises that echoed down the sewer tunnels and into the underpass outside. Alec put both hands on either side of the doorway and leant out, looked left then right, twisted to look back at Max. "Guess we can kiss goodbye to the element of surprise," he said, before straightening and exiting the sewer.

Down through the metal platform, Max could see the determined face of Reed, climbing further up the ladder, and the upturned faces of Weaver and Cleo, still on the ground. Seeing Max's scrutiny, Weaver flashed her an 'ok' sign - he and Cleo were to wait behind, securing the group's exit. Max signalled an 'ok' back and exited after Alec.

Alec had moved further away from the steel door, holding his rifle negligently and trailing the butt of the weapon as if he were weary from a long night of patrol. The shoulder sling skittered along the ground behind him. Max took a book from the same page and tried to look like she'd just been on the most boring foot patrol in history while taking in their surrounds.

The area around TC and the National Guard's base had been cleared of civilians, so the underpass was quiet and empty. A couple of rats nosing about in the trash were the only things moving. Max focused further outward, her eyes adjusting to the sterile brightness of the portable floodlights set up by the National Guard. She took the opportunity to assess the National Guard's defences with a critical eye.

The National Guard had fortified their base a block over from Terminal City in an old park, which kept it out of the transgenic's sight, even from the tallest building in TC. They had driven steel pickets into the ground and coiled barbed wire around them to create their first line of defence. Sandbags formed the second line that shielded the rest of their base from view. Max couldn't suppress a small smirk. Even the youngest of the X-Series could jump the wire and climb the sandbags without breaking a sweat. She doubted they'd have much trouble in exiting in the same manner if it all went to shit and they had to make a hasty exit. Her attention moved to the four soldiers manning this particular entry to the base.

At the opening of the sewer door the soldiers had tensed, tightened their hands on their weapons, then relaxed at the sight of the troops exiting in the familiar uniform of the National Guard.

Max picked out the name of the Sergeant commanding the fireteam - Sergeant Matteo - and kept an eye on him as she and Alec closed the distance, noting that the team was at ease and even looked a little bored.

"Rough patrol?" Sergeant Matteo called out, eyeing Alec and the way he was now blinking his eyes rapidly as if to wake himself up.

"_Boring_ patrol," Alec corrected. He picked up his rifle and shifted it to the crook of his arm, dragged a hand across his mouth and appeared to try to will himself awake. "Haven't seen or heard a thing from inside in six hours. May as well be guarding a hole in the ground." They stopped at the barbed-wire and Alec rested his elbows between the barbs. "Next time I go down I'm bringing a pack of cards and some beer, maybe some lawn chairs. Get a bit of a game going."

"Same song as always," the Sergeant said, propping an arm against the sandbag wall. "If there's something that needs guarding you can bet your ass it ain't gonna be fun to do it." He watched the rest of the transgenics trail from the sewer door, shook his head, gave the doorway a disbelieving look. "Place is 'sposed to be filled with glow-in-the-dark weirdos and no one's seen tail or hair in three days. If I hadn't seen those mutants on the news I'd think this was just some training exercise or one hell of a joke."

"Yeah," Alec said, not bothering to hide his amusement. "Cat-people and supersoldiers. Some joke, huh?"

The Sergeant shrugged a shoulder. "Whatever it is, it ain't natural."

"No disagreement there," said Alec. Max shifted her rifle, letting her arm jerk into Alec's back as she did so, and Alec seemed to get the point. "Well, Sergeant, I got a fascinating report on six hours of goose eggs and I'd like to get it all down before I forget any important details. You mind, uh-" he indicated the barbed-wire gate.

"No problem- " the Sergeant trailed off and squinted toward Alec's uniform "- Corporal." The corporal chevrons on the uniform Alec was wearing were clearly visible, but the body armour the troops had been wearing covered the name, and the Sergeant frowned, trying to put a name to Alec's face. "Don't think I've seen you on base before -"

"- Corporal Brown," Alec supplied. "Trucked in from HQ just before sundown. Didn't even have time to claim a bunk before our CO showed up and shoved us down that shit-hole." Alec indicated the sewer access door behind him with his thumb and gave an appropriately annoyed look.

The show was apparently convincing enough. Sergeant Matteo gave a brisk nod, turned to his left. "Get that gate open, Private!"

The Private flicked away a cigarette he'd been smoking and took his sweet time.

Looking pleased with how he had handled the situation, Alec turned and raised a brow at Max. Under his breath, he said, "Outta curiosity, what was the plan if Sergeant Twenty Questions here figured us out? Throw your empty mag at him?"

Max grabbed hold of the sling on Alec's rifle and pulled, forcing Alec to turn back around or otherwise be pulled off balance. _"Eyes front,"_ she hissed.

The gate finished trundling away and the Private held it open. Sergeant Matteo waved the nine transgenics through with a goodnatured "hurry your asses up," and they all slogged through the gate with relief they didn't have to feign. Syl winked at the Sergeant as she passed.

They split as soon as they cleared the sandbags and moved out of Sergeant Matteo's field of view. Cade and Faith moved off to the left, heading toward the command tent. Yams and Reed followed them - they would later branch off and toward the National Guard's tanks. Suki and Syl slipped away from them all and to the old motorcycle store where a detachment of the signal corp was housing their communications equipment.

Vonn led Alec and Max straight ahead. Vonn had done his best to recreate the plans of the base after he and his team had watched the National Guard set up camp, but the camp had changed in the last two days and by the time other transgenics had trickled into TC, the Guard had consolidated their perimeter and made it impossible to see what was happening inside. Max could see that more troops had arrived since that time, and the Guard had made an effort to move out from the park and into the surrounding buildings. By the look on Alec's face, he was also wondering whether the tent they were headed toward would still belong to Colonel Vinzet.

The grassy ground of the park had been churned to mud by tanks, wheels and boots; the transgenics tramped through it with singleminded unconcern. At this time of the morning it was quiet, except for a group of young privates they passed, seated in front of their tents. One of the privates hailed Vonn with a drunken 'hey, bro!' and made an attempt to invite the transgenics to join the festivities. "Maybe next time, fellas," Alec said, and they continued on.

The closer they came to the massive crape myrtle tree near the last known location of the Colonel's tent, the less muddy and more grassy the ground became. The tents were more spaced out, less careworn, and Max knew Officers would be the likely inhabitants.

"Ah," Vonn said, holding up a hand. "The three amigos arrive at their destination."

"We are _not_ amigos," Max muttered, taking a look around. There was nothing about this particular tent to distinguish it from either one next to it. The door was closed and the canvas, where it met the frame of the door, couldn't suppress a sliver of light. She pulled her helmet off. "Here goes nothing," she said, turning the handle and walking inside.

An ageing man was seated behind a pop-up desk with a bunch of papers spread out around him. His uniform was crisp and his visible left boot was close to the shiniest thing in the room. Max's vision zoomed to the papers and noted the marked positions of what appeared to be sniper teams on buildings around TC, then darted up to the familiar white hair and square features of Colonel Vinzet. _"Rest assured, we have this place screwed shut tighter than duck's ass,"_ the Colonel had said in his single television interview with the local news. _"First miscreation to show their face will be met by one of my boys' bullets."_ That single comment had been the impetus for their current plan, and the memory of it put a little more defiance in her stride.

Alec and Vonn followed her into the tent, Vonn pulling the door closed behind him.

The slow scrawl of Colonel Vinzet's pen stopped at their entrance, then he set down his pen and followed their passage with his eyes.

Vonn amused himself by standing to attention, snapping a salute, "Sir!", while Alec gave the Colonel a cursory glance before assessing the tent.

Max halted before Vinzet, hands on hips and addressing him with an irreverence that would've earned her a week in solitary back at Manticore. "We have a perimeter breach to report."

The Colonel was silent, taking this strange turn of events in his stride; then he simply clasped his hands in front of him and leant back in his chair, looking as if a surprise audience from the government's experimental supersoldiers was something he could roll with. "So it seems," came the easy reply. His voice was gravelly and held the hint of the south. "Thank you for taking the time to do so personally. Should make it easier for my boys to pick you up."

"The same boys who just let me walk right through your front gate?" Max leant forward and moved a couple of papers on his desk aside, added, "I wouldn't trust those boneheads to catch a cold." Inwardly, she was categorising the papers on Vinzet's desk - rations, tanks, personnel. When she looked up, one hand hovering over a rations report, Vinzet was watching her movements with slight reproach. She gave him a _well, what did you expect?_ grin, and retracted her hand. "Guess we'll have to wait and see if you're any better at catching transgenics than the last Colonel who tried to bust me. 'Course, he had ten more years and the backing of the only government department who actually knew what they were dealing with, and he still ended up tied to a chair in a warehouse with me threatening to cut off a couple of fingers." She gave him a calculating look. "Who knows? Maybe you get lucky. Probably you don't."

Vinzet looked down at his hands, his fuller cheeks the only indication that something had amused him. "Here I thought military intelligence was a funny contradiction of itself. It's disconcerting to see that the official word on your jacket is surprisingly correct. Something about you being overconfident and having a smart mouth."

"Gee. And here I am thinking no one understands me."

Someone, Alec or Vonn, snorted behind her.

Vinzet went on like she hadn't interrupted. "Let's get to the pointy end of why you unconventional test-tube folk are here. It's almost sunrise, and if I don't get to turn in with the sound of early morning infomercials lulling me sleep this visit ain't gonna end in a way you want it to."

"Relax, Colonel. We're just dropping by to welcome Uncle Sam to the neighbourhood..." Max looked around the tent, pretending to be interested "... borrow a cup of sugar, maybe some tanks; invite you to our next movie night."

Vinzet nodded, unaffected by Max's flippancy. "Well, alright then. This sounds like a friendly visit." He unlaced his fingers and reached for the cigar box to his right, giving Max a look of polite inquiry. "Do you mind?"

"Go ahead. It's your tent."

That prompted a sardonic smile. He chose a cigar, cut the end and had it lit with the deftness of someone well accustomed to the routine. He took a deep draw. "Normally I don't make the habit of smokin' so early in the morning, understand, but now I find myself with a sudden craving." He blew out a smoky breath and turned his attention back to Max. "Now I've had a smoke and you've made your dramatic entrance, I hope we can get a bit nearer to that pointy end I was talking about." He pointed his cigar at Max in a move reminiscent of Mole. "I also hope the tone of our conversation won't take a turn by my finding out what happened to the men you took those uniforms from."

"We trussed 'em up like christmas turkeys and left 'em naked in the sewer." By Max's tone, it clear that she wasn't sorry about it, either. "You get them back when we're all safely behind the fence."

"Alright." He puffed on his cigar once more, giving her pristine uniform a hard look, probably looking for spatters of blood to contradict her claim, before he blew it out. "I'll assume that's true. You herd those soldiers back in my general direction, you can have my guarantee that you'll leave this tent freely." He paused. "Understand, though, that I can't make any guarantees for what might happen if the door hits you on your way out. A group of transgenics outside the fence ain't gonna be treated very neighbourly."

"Understood." Given the circumstances, it was the best she could've hoped for. Max placed her hands on the desk and leant forward, ostensibly treating the Colonel to the same thorough inspection he'd given her. "Now we've got the pleasantries out of the way, here's the thing. During that lifetime of indoctrination the government had us in, I vaguely remember pledging allegiance to a flag-"

"- About a million times," Alec interjected.

"- so me and my friends here are pretty big on the laws or Amendments or whatever that bunch of bearded dudes said we all got a right to. You can imagine how thrilled we are that our sole purpose in life is to fight for a country that gives every idiot the right to go runnin' their mouths, sayin' we're monsters just for turning out exactly the way the government wanted. It's enough to give a girl an existential crisis." A short burst of smoke curled out of the Colonel's nose. "Now some Colonel's on the evening news threatening to shoot every transgenic on sight. Not only does that tick me off, now I've got a base full of soldiers after any piece of you they can get, and a cigar-smokin' lizard one bad day away from going Godzilla on your ass." She pushed off the desk, added, "As if I don't got enough on my hands."

Alec was nodding behind her like a politician's aide. Vonn had crossed his arms, watching Max and the Colonel converse with one side of his mouth turned up.

The Colonel had listened along with an expression of polite interest. At the reference to Mole, his mouth twisted wryly. "It must be a sign of the times that I can listen to a speech that includes mention of a lizard with the ability to smoke a cigar and not call you a bucket full of crazy." He tapped his cigar, let some ash fall. "Much as I'd like to sit down and have a nice long chat about the rules of engagement, you may as well go find yourself the bottom of a hill to upturn the shitters on so you can start pushin' the proverbial uphill. Senator McKinley has recommended that you be declared an enemy of the State, and the Congressional task force has a bill tabled saying that your kind doesn't have any rights. You are also illegally occupying a restricted area and, despite these three past days of opportunity, have not turned yourself into Seattle's Police Department who I understand have a warrant for your arrest." He crossed a booted foot across his leg. "I like your guts, kid, but your problems go way beyond worrying about what my snipers are doing."

Alec shook his head at the floor. Through a laugh, he said, "Wow, you just ain't gettin' it. Ever seen the death scene in _Island of Lost Souls?"_

"That's an interesting choice of comparison," was Vinzet's response.

"You made the natives restless," Max said, watching as Vinzet's eyes swung back from Alec to her. "We're giving you a friendly heads up. All those billions of tax dollars the government sank into Manticore weren't for flatscreens and monogrammed pyjamas; they were creating the perfect soldier. They might not have reached perfection, but they got pretty damn close. We're stronger, smarter, faster, than anyone you know. We're not just highly trained; we're a whole other ball game." Vinzet's eyes had narrowed, waiting for the threat he expected was coming. "We're also hungry, scared, and more desperate than ever. You shoot anyone behind the fence, even just hang the threat of it over their head, people are gonna start getting desperate enough to start doing something stupid."

Vinzet's line of sight lowered to the rifle hanging from her shoulder. "I appreciate the passive-aggressive warning, and I think I understand your point. Even if I were inclined to give my snipers the less exciting option on the table, my orders are still to keep your kind behind the fence."

Alec gave a smirk. "Bang up job on that, by the way."

"Look," Max said, drawing Vinzet's attention back. "It's been three days and you haven't rolled your tanks in, so I gotta think that the people calling the shots don't want a bunch of dead women and kids ending up on the nightly news. You're risking a lot of trouble for something we both know you're not gonna follow through on. Here's the deal. All I need is your word that we can stay inside the fence without playing hide and seek with your snipers. I tell my guys that you wanting to blow their brains across the yard was all just a big misunderstanding, then we can all go back to staring at each other through the fence. Got it?"

Max really hoped that he did, because the mood inside TC after Vinzet's speech was hostile at best. If people started getting shot up after she'd urged them to stay and fight, Mole would have the opportunity for the biggest I Fucking Told You So, and that prickly moron would probably end up running the joint. She sure as hell wasn't going to let that happen. Best for both sides of the fence if Vinzet gave his word and benched the snipers.

She gave him a second to respond, but Vinzet appeared neither swayed nor unswayed by her argument, puffing away with still-narrowed eyes, so Max leant over his desk again. "There's one more thing. Call it us officially requesting humanitarian aid, or me making an appeal to your conscience, whatever works. Got a female behind the fence who just had a kid. She's sick, can't feed her kid without giving it a dose of antibiotics strong enough to kill a horse. We need something to tide her over in the meantime. I was hoping you could help us out."

Vinzet looked amused that Max was now making supply demands from him. "The female and child are transgenic?"

"Does it matter?" she shot back.

Where his leg was crossed across the other, he tapped a thumb against his boot. "I should point out that the National Guard is not here to supply your ongoing resistance. In case you hadn't noticed the tanks around your fence."

"Green things?" She mimed a vague box shape. "Look like they have a big gun mounted on the front? Yeah. Kinda hard to miss. So what? Are you gonna smoke us out by withholding food for a kid that's not even four days old?"

Vinzet's thumb continued to tap against his boot, staring at Max with the same stoicism he'd shown when she'd first walked into his tent. He grunted and rubbed at his eye with his free hand. "Can't say those of the pencil pushing variety in DC are gonna like it, but I can sort something for the kid if you scratch my back, you understand?" His voice was more intent and had picked up a little more of the southern twang. "Transgenics stay inside the wire and keep their heads down. I don't want anything on the news that might give the public the impression that transgenics are anything less than subdued and contained. You keep as scarce as you were before you showed up at my gate, and all my men get back in one piece. Agree to my terms, then you have my word on the snipers. If you think you can trust it."

Max didn't even have to think about it. "Deal," she said easily, and leant forward, hand outstretched.

The Colonel uncrossed his leg, leant forward and clasped Max's hand with only a small moment of hesitation beforehand. "Alright, then. Now, best you make tracks before I change my mind."

Max turned and signalled the others out. Before she disappeared from the tent, she stopped, and said, "Don't take this the wrong way, Colonel, but I don't trust you at all. I'm just counting on you not to be a dick."

Alec kept his eyes on the Colonel as he took a few steps backward, then followed Max out of the tent, ducking on his way through. Vonn grinned, whether at Max's parting words or the slight disbelief those words had managed to bring across the Colonel's face, then strolled forward and lifted the box of cigars from the Colonel's desk. "For the lizard," Vonn explained, then went after Max and Alec, closing the tent's door behind him.

Max had reached the next row of tents over before Alec stopped her with a hand on her arm and an odd look. "Gem isn't sick, Max."

Max shrugged. "Nope. But he doesn't know that."

"So… what? You got a weird case of the cravings or you think Manticore stiffed you on the post natal vitamins? What am I missing here?"

"How about a functioning brain?" Alec gave her a ha, ha look. "It's called testing the enemy's intentions. Did you actually learn anything at Manticore or did you just sit at the back of the class making spitballs?"

Max jogged after Vonn, who had continued on without them, his new box of cigars tucked under one arm. Alec stared after her a moment before following, complaining behind her. "Could've asked for something we could actually use. How 'bout a foosball table, uh?"

Max rolled her eyes and raised her hand to her headset, addressing not only the transgenics in the National Guard's base but those still working down in the sewers. "_All units, this is Oh-Niner. Break it up and haul ass, people. Party's over."_ She shared a look with Vonn, who was holding one of the National Guard's headsets closer to his ear. He shook his head, indicating that there was no unusual radio traffic, and that Vinzet had so far kept his word.

The three transgenics didn't waste another moment. They were all perhaps aware that while the Colonel had given them safe passage out of his tent, the safely for rest of their journey wasn't guaranteed.

Max was in the lead now, a sense of urgency bringing her in front of the others as they retraced their steps. Two pairs of quickly moving footsteps fell in behind them. Max didn't have to turn around to know that one of the transgenic groups had rejoined them.

The last two pairs were already waiting at their exit, Syl with a duffel bag slung over each shoulder and Suki with a third and fourth on the ground at her feet.

Suki picked the duffells up at their approach. "Looks clear."

The group of nine transgenics gathered and Max gave them all a once over. "We good?" she asked.

At the varying acknowledgements, Alec said, "Let's get out of here."

Exiting they same way they'd entered would no doubt raise Sergeant Matteo's eyebrows, so the exit they chose now was further South. The setup was almost identical: sandbags ringed by barbed wire and soldiers guarding the entry; except these soldiers looked on high alert and there were easily twice as many as those they'd encountered earlier.

Alec noticed the increased security and strode ahead, his steps unfaltering, and leading the group through the sandbags.

The guards turned at the appearance of the group. The commanding Sergeant looked them over and held up a hand.

Alec stopped, signalled for them all to stop too, and threw a frown over his shoulder at Max. "What's the hold up, Sarge?"

The Sergeant had lines around his mouth that told that he was a perpetual frowner. Those lines were getting one hell of a work out. "Comms are down from our guys in the sewers. We don't know if it's technical or something else."

Max kept her breathing even, though all her senses seemed to hit defcon one.

Alec drummed a finger against his weapon and blew his breath out with frustration. "We know," he said. "We're the canaries the boss is sending down to figure out what the hell is going on." He raised his free hand to the back of his neck, a hint of exasperation creeping into his voice. "Some idiot in comms probably forgot to flick a switch or something."

Syl hefted a duffle bag higher on her shoulder and tried not to smirk. She and Suki had _un_flicked the switches and removed a few wires that were causing the National Guard's problems.

The Sergeant gave a wry look, his gaze at the direction of the building that comms was set up in. "Or the mutants could be making their move," he said, sounding guarded. "Watch your six," he said, and flicked a hand at the soldier closest to the gate.

"And every other number."

The gate rattled open, and the transgenics exited the National Guard's base.

The closest sewer entry was only a few blocks away. Alec lead them at a blistering march past residential buildings with unused restaurants, a burnt out video shop and a laundromat at street level. The evacuated streets were deathly quiet . Detritus littered the streets: shopping trolleys, burnt out cars, old mattresses. The National Guard had cleared a wider path through it all for their tanks, and a lot of it was pushed up onto the sidewalk as if a dozer had been through. The sounds of their quick march bounced from one building to another. It was all eerie and post-apocalyptic and did nothing to slow Max's heart beat.

Finally the harsh floodlights fell away and only the illumination from streetlights remained. At one block away from the National Guard's base Max felt some of her caution slip away. At two blocks she felt like she'd gotten away with murder. She didn't even roll her eyes when Vonn fell into step beside her and shot her a sly grin.

"Nicely handled," he said. He had spoken quietly but it still echoed down the street. "Surprisingly well, actually. With your personality being… what it is, I actually thought this little jaunt would end hilariously badly."

"Great. Guess that confirms you as the suicidal maniac of the group." It was a mark of her current happiness at a mission gone right that the words lacked their usual bite.

Vonn skirted an old radio and gave another grin. "Actually, my belief in self-preservation is so deeply entrenched that it's almost self-fulfilling." After a beat, he continued, "It wouldn't be any hardship to-"

Max frowned, and looked back. Vonn had frozen mid-word beside a Hyundai hatchback, his face screwed up, and his hand at his headset. He shook his head at her when he noticed her attention, then motioned for her to continue walking. Syl, Yams and Alec - all with headsets lifted from the National Guard - had affected casual strides as well, although it was clear that something was up.

Vonn finally lowered his hand. At the look on his face, Max's stomach dropped. _"Run."_

A shout went up behind them as the transgenics geared into a full on sprint. The group of nine turned into the closest side street, the first cracks of gunfire chipping away at the corner bricks on their heels. Syl gasped and clutched at her chest as she cleared the corner. A louder shout went up.

Max sent a fearful look back at Syl and kept running.

Like they'd learnt in their childhood, the nine transgenics fell easily into formation, arms pumping as they supported their rifles in a controlled run. The echoey noise of orders being barked followed them down the empty street, but no footsteps yet; the transgenic's group was large and it would take the National Guard precious moments to assemble a force sizeable and mobile enough to catch them and take them down.

Max hurdled an oil drum. A hard note in her voice, she glanced at Vonn and asked, "What happened?"

Vonn was grim, projecting a credible attempt at serious. He chanced a quick sideways look at Max as they continued running. "_Someone_ doesn't know how to use a zip tie."

"For _christsake-"_

"A guardsman got loose and ran for reinforcements," Vonn said before Max could get more worked up. "Apparently whoever thought the zip ties were a good idea didn't factor in restraining David bloody Copperfield."

The response was impassioned. "_Crap."_

"What a talent for understatement."

Alec signalled his intentions at the next corner and took it at full pelt, bringing them to the next street parallel to their pursuers and putting three whole city blocks between them and TC. They ran forward for another block, gaining distance between themselves and the ordinaries, then took another side street.

"Stop here," Max said, sending a worried look back at Syl, who was wheezing at the brisk pace.

It was as good a spot as any. The streets, not set out in a perfect square grid, gave them cover from three sides, and the alley was full of crap to hide behind. Max used her shoulder and a big industrial bin to bring her momentum to a halt and crouched while she caught her breath. The others took places in around her, kicking plastic bags and god knows what else out of the way. Their heavy breathing sounded amplified.

"Syl, you alright?" Max asked.

Syl gave a wan smile, even as she winced and bent over double, one arm bracing against the bricks to steady herself. She shrugged the duffle bags from her shoulders with considered movements. "I'm ok," she said, sounding winded. "Bullet caught me in the chest." She uncurled a fist. In her palm was a metal lump she had pulled from an indent in her vest, where the ballistic plates of her body armour had ensured the projectile hadn't traveled any further. "Knocked my breath clear out."

Yams slung an arm around Syl's shoulders as he radioed their situation back to base, ordering everyone to maintain radio silence.

Max nodded her approval and turned to Alec, who was holding himself against the side of a bin and doing a chamber check on his rifle. "You're thinking the sewer opening near Lang's?" she asked.

Alec spared her a quick glance then went back to the ministrations on his rifle. He knew they were supposed to avoid using their rifles for as long as they could, but the current situation had him on autopilot. "Yeah. We can beat the ordinaries there in a foot race, and it's far enough from TC that it's not heavily guarded. Why, what're you thinking?"

"That there's a sniper covering that entry." Alec swore and dragged a hand across his mouth. She almost echoed the sentiment. "Saw it marked on Vinzet's map. Got one posted with a line of sight on the sewer entry and both streets leading to it."

"Well, we can't go back." He cast an annoyed look behind him. "It'd just be too much to ask if we could catch a freakin' break, huh." Another impatient breath, then he called, "Vonn!" Vonn had been listening in and turned from where he had his rifle pointed in the direction they'd come. "Remember that sniper in Yugoslav?"

Vonn straightened and swung his rifle up. "Yes," he said carefully. "Care for the sequel?"

"'Bout the only way I can see us getting out of here, ain't it?"

Vonn looked thoughtful for a moment. "I'll need your comms."

Alec unclipped his handheld - the one linked back to Luke and the others at TC - and chucked it at Vonn. Vonn snatched it out of the air and blurred around the corner.

Seeing the direction of Max's gaze, Alec made a circling motion and pointed up toward Lang's. "He'll go high and take the sniper and his spotter. If it's not safe to meet back up after he clears the roof he'll hide outside the wire until it is." He indicated the end of the street with his head. "Come on. That makes us the bait."

"Great," Max said, following behind. "Whac-A-Mole with a sniper. Can't see how that could go wrong."

"Come on, Max." His grin was teasing. "What's the worst that could happen?" He snagged one of Syl's duffle bags and was around the corner, transgenics jogging behind, before Max could put a voice to her angry frown.

The sounds of pursuit had slowly increased during their brief stop in the alley, so now they picked up the pace. The street they entered was authentic Seattle roadway. It hadn't yet been cleared by the National Guard, and what was once a two-lane street was now barely one. It twisted between bedframes, rusting whitegoods, tyres, and other debris that provided the transgenics with far more cover and would force the National Guard to abandon any thought of pursuit by vehicle. The building the sniper had nested in, topped with a broken 'Galloway's' sign, lay ahead. Vonn was either too quick or had taken a different path that had led him away from the others for Max to see where he was going; if he was smart, Max imagined that he'd circled around to come upon the sniper from the opposite direction.

The transgenics jogged as close to cover as they could until Max signalled a halt before the sniper's field of view, then pointed out the Galloway building. They all took turns in glancing over the retaining wall at it.

It was a five storey building, diagonally across from their current position in the far right side of a Y-intersection. It was a smart position, giving the sniper and his spotter a view of the Lang's sewer entry and both ends of the street it was located in. It would be impossible for the transgenics to make the sewer entry and remove the cover without catching a bullet or two, and after the alert that had been given over the National Guard's comms, the sniper team would be keeping out a weather eye. Still, they weren't gonna make it easy for them.

"Right," Alec said, clapping his hands together. "Welcome to Running Fast Enough Not To Eat A Bullet 101. Let's hope you're all a quick study."

Reed looked almost offended. "Think we got that covered. All the shooter's gonna see is the tail of a person-shaped blur before we hit that wall over there." Reed gestured toward Lang's takeaway store where a brick half-wall would conceal him from the sniper's sight.

Alec shook his head. "Nope. Gotta stow the superspeed, otherwise the spotter's not gonna be busy trying to shoot us. We don't want them scanning for targets and accidentally finding Vonn before he kicks them out of their nest." He rolled his neck and shrugged his shoulders, limbering up. "See you on the other side." He left cover in a running crouch, zig-zagging from a car to a refrigerator. A shot rang out.

Max didn't see where it hit, only noting that by the lack of any corresponding grunt, it hadn't hit flesh. Max had been leant out from behind their cover with her focus on the rooftops instead, searching for a muzzle flash. She ducked back behind the retaining wall. "Shooter's under the first 'A' in the 'Galloway' sign."

"Good to know," said Suki, already rising to dash after Alec.

Two more transgenics left and another shot missed its mark. The second landed in Syl's leg, who swore loud enough to wake the dead before she blurred the rest of the way to Lang's.

"Man am I glad she left the mothership before she could end up in my team," Faith muttered, tensing to follow. "Chick is a bullet magnet."

The sniper had gotten better at anticipating their path, so Faith blurred out from the retaining wall and then ran erratically over to Lang's. When Faith ducked behind the wall at Lang's and disappeared from sight, Max turned to Yams and Reed. "Who's next? Rock-paper-scissors, or do we have a volunteer?"

Yams grinned widely, confirming that bat-shit crazy was a desired trait in Vonn's old team. "That'd be me," he said. Still grinning, he blurred out then loped away like a rabbit at a greyhound track.

"What the-" Reed twisted to his left with the unmistakable sound of a round striking brick.

Both Reed and Max turned at the same moment, another chunk of brick crumbling and kicking up a little brick dust on the wall between them. Behind them, a few blocks away and down the street they had come from, the National Guard had assembled a group of twenty heavily armed soldiers, crouched behind cover and aiming their weapons like they meant business.

Max ducked another round and grabbed her rifle. "Okay. Time to bail."

Reed sent a few dozen rounds back at the National Guard, sending their heads back behind cover, then Max and Reed both blurred away, not slowing to give the sniper the illusion of a chance. Reed vaulted the wall to where the rest of the group was crouched and she followed him right over, landing between Cade and Suki and barely missing from landing on a duffle bag that Suki had jammed up against her side. "The cavalry decided to put in an appearance," Max explained, addressing what the flurry of bullets had been about. "No sign of Vonn?"

The eight transgenics had ended up in sort-of enclosure, made by a low wall on the street side, the building next which jutted out further into the street than Lang's, and the front of Lang's takeaway store itself. Across the street, visible to the sniper, was the only man-sized street-level entry to the sewer in the general vicinity that wasn't heavily guarded. Merely a grate raised by a concrete chute, Suki eyed it wistfully, then answered Max's question. "Not yet."

Max nodded. They couldn't risk contacting him for a status update in case the noise gave away his position. "Let's hope the twenty National Guardsmen coming up from behind are enough of a distraction, otherwise we can look forward to getting shot at from two directions while we wait for him to close the deal."

"Vonn will come through," Alec said.

"He's got one minute before we're gonna have to make a run for it."

"Yeah… I think I'm about done with the running today," said Syl. Max turned to her, embarrassed that she'd momentarily forgotten about her sister's bad luck. The wound had been bandaged high on Syl's thigh, spots of red already showing through. Syl's leg was outstretched from her position, leant against one of the duffle bags. She gave a half-smile at Max's perusal. "It feels about as good as it looks."

"It didn't hit the femur or your femoral artery," Cade said. His bloody hands showed that he was the source of the impromptu medical treatment. "But yeah," he gave a self-conscious laugh, "you won't be running for a while."

Syl groaned, turned her head up toward the sky and laced her hands behind her head.

Max slumped down beside her only to straighten again at the welcome sound of radio static. Syl and Yams, both with headsets as well, shushed the group.

_"This is Coburn one eight. Reporting mission success and respectfully requesting you get your asses into gear before you're overrun by our friends with the guns. This scope I found lying next to this unconscious sniper up here tells me you have about twenty seconds. I suggest you run."_

Vonn's last words were pointless, because the eight transgenics on the street below him had already started running.

Cade ran full pelt at the sewer grate. Yams hit the grate a moment after. They both hauled it straight off its hinges and carried it to the side. Syl grunted, suspended between the supporting arms of Alec and Reed, then hissed as they lifted her into the opening. Both X-5's lept after her.

Vonn's commentary continued in Max's ear. _"Five seconds."_

_"Shut up,"_ she growled.

_"Four."_

Suki disappeared, then Faith.

"_Three."_

Max chucked the last duffle into Reed's outstretched arms and clambered through the opening just as Vonn said "_Two",_ then crawled around a bend and swung down the seven foot drop to a small antechamber she recognised as Junction N15. Eight anxious faces looked back at her.

"So…" Syl started. "Anyone else just see their life flash before their eyes and wish they'd gone blonde years sooner?"

Yams gave a cheshire grin, and Alec blew out a breath. "Not since my last near death experience about, ah…" Alec paused. "Has it really been three days already?"

Max snorted. "You got shot in the _arm_, Alec, and blonde tips are for Backstreet Boys and highlight reels from the nineties. Get over it."

* * *

><p>"<em>This is Shawshank. All units, standby for Entourage reentry in 1 mike."<em> Luke heard a number of 'copy that' and 'affirmatives' transmitted from the various transgenics positioned around the grate where Max and the others were expected to appear. Luke waited until they'd all reported in then swung his chair around to face the computer bank in front of Dix. "How are the infrareds?"

Dix scratched at the plastic bubble that sat over his left eye - it always itched - and leant closer to the monitors. There were over twenty computer monitors in TC 's headquarters, but the eight in front of Dix were dedicated solely to TC's subterranean security. The eighth monitor had been scrounged from an old Biotech lab a couple of blocks over and plugged into the systems that morning in anticipation of the day's events. It displayed a blueprint amalgamation of the stormwater, telecommunication, subway and sewerage systems under TC and it's surrounds. For the past hour, blinking dots had appeared on the monitor, each corresponding with the installation of a tiny sensor in the sewer roof. Two of those blinking dots were red. Dix entered a command and the seventh monitor's image was replaced by a dark screen. "Uh..." A couple more keys were pressed, adjusting the brightness of the video feed that had been activated by the sensors. Vonn and Alec were made visible in black and white, moving across the screen. As they disappeared from the camera's eye, Faith and Yams appeared. "...Yeah. They look good."

Luke rolled his chair closer. "Houston, we have lift off." The two transhumans fistbumped.

"Ay!" Both Luke and Dix turned toward the source of the exclamation. Mole was pointing at the two. "No celebrating 'til we get that recording back."

Luke nodded, trying to look chastened while simultaneously exchanging an exasperated look with Dix. Dix simply swung his chair back to his computers without a word.

Mole stared at them for a full two seconds. "Amateurs," he said, then went back to his conversation with Dash, one of the only X-5's Mole obviously liked - not because of an abiding friendship, but because they both shared similar views on cigars, ordinaries and Max.

The transhuman and X-5 were surrounded by the few others that had been clued into the night operation. They filled the empty spaces of HQ. The old paint production plant, now free of its paint manufacturing equipment, had become the defacto hang-about as well as their operations centre. In the large space, crisscrossed by catwalks and observation decks, only Luke and Dix were on the tech deck; the rest were spread out on the bottom floor or catwalks, seated on couches and tables that were scattered around the room. Some had gotten bored by the wait and begun fine-tuning the motorbikes or oiling weapons.

Kat, a furry transhuman with two little canine teeth that always seemed to poke over her bottom lip, twitched an ear and thrashed her tail back and forth. "Oooh. They're _coming_."

"'Bout damn time," said Mole.

The heavy doors flew open and Max lead the participants of the sortie inside, shedding armour, duffle bags and weapons.

"Got it?" was Mole's immediate question.

"Yep." Max threw an electronic device overhand toward the deck. Dix calmly put an arm up and the device sailed straight into his palm.

Alec made an impressed noise. "Dude got screwed in the looks department, but he made a killing on the reflexes."

Kat sidled closer to the deck. "Some _so_ much more than others." Her tail flicked out behind her, curling and dragging across an anatomical junction that had Alec coughing awkwardly.

Dix connected the device to his computer and waited for it to load, while the X-Series and transhumans crowded around the deck.

The device held Max's recorded conversation with Colonel Vinzet - the proof Mole, Dash and others had demanded when she'd pitched her idea about talking to the Colonel rather than plotting to kill him. As it played, Max made her way to a spare table and placed her palms behind her flat on the surface, facing the deck and watching the others as they listened to her make the deal with the Colonel.

Alec finished up his conversation with Vonn and wandered over to mirror her stance against the table. He was quiet for a moment, watching the others as well. "Seems to be enough. Or enough to keep 'em in line for now."

She shrugged. "All we gotta do is get through today. Tomorrow will have it's own problems."

One of those problems was over by the deck, talking out of earshot with another group of X-5's and transhumans. Dash glanced at Max and Alec, expressionless, then turned back to whatever cloak and dagger BS he was organising now. Dash was an ex-team leader like Vonn, used to control and with very particular ideas about the way things should be run. Max had come to know him well during the three days of shut in at TC, because he was the most vocal of the X-5's who were all for running roughshod over the National Guard's base and reclaiming what he considered to be their rightful freedom. Max couldn't argue with that, but she did take issue with killing a bunch of people whose only mistake was following orders. Max didn't just want freedom; she wanted her friends, her shitty job, her apartment back. She wanted her life, and she knew she wasn't going to get that if Dash got his way.

Alec pulled his weapon sling over his head. He'd unstrapped the body armour on his way to HQ and dropped it in a bundle by the door. Now he sat the assault rifle on the table behind him and ran his hand through his hair, roughing up the flatness caused by his borrowed helmet. "You know," he said, watching Dash as well, "I'm starting to think the Colonel was kinda right. When he was talking about hills and shitters, anyway."

Max turned to him sharply. "The hell does that mean? You think we don't have a chance of getting out of here?"

He ruffled his hair again, this time with more agitation. "I mean… he had a point, right? Outside the fence, all they see is a threat. Say we do get outta here, ain't gonna do us much good if we're still being hunted. Maybe we need to start looking into ways that make us seem… shit, I dunno. Safe, I guess."

She gave a slight, grudging nod. "We do have a PR problem. Beats me how we'd fix it, though. I'm not into that hearts and minds thing. More fists and faces."

"One of the reasons we wouldn't be putting you in charge."

The recording finished and the transgenics drifted away from the deck, some gravitating toward Dash and others leaving HQ completely. Mole, however, came toward the two looking like he had a bone to pick. He, as ever, had a face that was practically immovable, so the only expression he ever relayed was one of perpetual irritation. Max wasn't sure if his mouth was even capable of surpassing the horizontal, let alone whether he had the inclination to ever move it in an upward direction.

"Hey, Mole," Max said as he approached, another of those problems she'd definitely rather deal with tomorrow. "You like the present we brought ya?"

Mole grunted. "Negative. I asked for the Colonel's head on a plate, but I'm getting used to you X-5's disappointin'."

"Not really my style," said Max. "Try asking for a pony next time."

"Make it a tall white one. I'll let you borrow it so you can ride in on it when you're saving the planet from that shroud of death and whatnot. It'll look real theatrical."

"Say your piece, Mole, and make it quick cause I'm suddenly not in the mood."

Mole took in her now crossed arms. "Oh," he said, as if Max had said something he didn't know. "Max in a mood. Must be a day ending in a 'y'."

Alec stepped closer to Mole and interjected smoothly. He was already tired and keen to press the pause button on the periodic butting of the heads before one or both of them started getting a run up - at least until after he left. "Mole, my thick skinned, ironically-named friend." Mole swung his scaly head around, locking on to his new target. "What can we help you with?"

"Debrief." The word came out like an accusation. "If you '5's are gonna go making promises about movements on base, we need to debrief and get everyone squared away. 'Specially before one of them squirrell idiots gets caught with their nuts out." Mole nodded toward a table tucked away in the corner, where two transhumans were, at first glance, sorting through a box of nuts and bolts. Or they sort of were. As Max watched, Pan stuffed a handful into his pants pocket and Pell angled one, just right, above his pointed ear while his tongue wiggled during the difficult balancing act. They were technically sorting them, though.

"Aw, they're not that bad," Alec said.

"You're looking at what happened when Manticore thought of the most useless animal on the planet, then mixed it in with equal parts of tree bark and dimwit. If we'd been saddled with them in Iraq," said Mole, "I wouldn't stop 'em if they tried to run off with an IED; I'd stand back and watch the fireworks, and the last thought I'd spare for either one of 'em would be whether to send them home in a box or a ziploc bag." He grunted. "Perimeter guard's had to haul 'em away from the fence already tonight. You want 'em spotting something they really want that's situated just outside?"

"I'll talk to them," Alec said. "Again. But we're gonna have to take a raincheck on the debrief." Mole made a displeased noise that Alec spoke over the top of. "We're gonna hit the showers. Huddle up's at 0900, then you can debrief the pants off whoever you want."

"0900," Mole repeated forcefully - he was going to hold them to it. "Off the record…" Max sighed "... and onto the subject of the Colonel. What are we looking at with this joker? He from the government's anti-Manticore crew or White's batch of guano cookies?"

"That," Alec said, drawing out the word, "sounds like a good question for the debrief."

"He's not from either," Max said, the certainty drawing Mole's attention and raising Alec's eyebrows.

"You sure about that?" Alec asked. "He wasn't exactly falling over himself to help us out."

"Wasn't exactly falling over himself to turn us in, either," she pointed out.

"Yeah... That's pretty thin, Max."

"Well I _know_ he's not a Familiar."

"Why?" Alec was squinting sceptically. "'Cause he wasn't wearing robes and holding a snake?"

"No," she said, annoyed tone accompanying the same look she gave Alec whenever he was being deliberately dense. She held up her right forearm and pointed to the place she knew the Familiars were burnt with the karif. "'Cause he didn't have the mark."

Mole was unconvinced. "Don't mean it ain't somewhere else."

Max shook her head. "You didn't see the ritual around it; it's like their sacred mark or something. They're not giving them away as tramp stamps."

"Still ain't much help to us," said Mole. "Even if the Colonel ain't the enemy, we don't know who's in his chain of command. You start assuming he's friendly, you're gonna get us caught with our pants down. We prepare for the worst. That's something that would've been drilled in if you hadn't spent the last ten years painting your nails and riding bicycles."

Max reacted instantly. "Maybe I should've stayed home and painted my nails instead of breaking your ass out of Manticore."

"Maybe you shoulda."

Alec let out a tormented sigh. "Guys, guys… Can we pick this up at the debrief?"

Max pushed off the table with a glower. Mole seemed to have a particular talent for demolishing her zen, but lately his blunt asides felt targeted rather than just the wide swathe of condescending steel wool he applied liberally to all inhabitants of TC. She shot Mole a look that should've blistered off some scales, then turned to Alec. "Can't wait," she said. "Maybe I'll go bang my head against a wall for the next few hours just to prepare myself. At some point you've got to build up a tolerance, right?" She angled through the the both of them to make her way outta there.

Mole's voice followed her, increasing in volume as she stalked further away. "Better lose the attitude, princess. That anti-apocalypse death ray you got up your sleeve don't give you a free pass."

Curled on a lime green couch, Kat cocked her head and watched Max cross the room and slam the door behind her. Her tail twitched, reacting to the excitement. "Mee-ow," she said, eyes glittering.

* * *

><p>Max stalked away from HQ, passing block after block in a dark mood that made anyone who thought about approaching her think twice. She would have continued that way for quite a while longer if Joshua hadn't come down from the rooftop where he was stationed to ask her what was wrong. But her latest encounter with Mole had affected her in a way she couldn't readily explain, and Max hadn't been able to do much to reassure her friend that she was fine before leaving him frowning behind.<p>

She forged a circuit around Main Street and Trove, but couldn't shake the same restlessness that had set in ever since the National Guard had swooped in and cooped them up like battery hens. Any other day she would've climbed the Space Needle, either to let the height and the wind whip everything away or to dwell at length, depending on her mood. TC, although somewhat of a landmark in itself and now remembered more notoriously than the biohazardous toxic dump had been before the transgenics had moved in, lacked a building of a height sufficient to suit her mood and it was far too soon to risk a journey outside the fence when it was a condition of the Colonel's to keep within it.

She abandoned the circuit and headed for the building at their southern perimeter, proclaimed as the long defunct 'Finney & McCormack' in askew lettering. She took the stairs two at a time then shouldered open the fire door at the top. A fixed ladder to the side of the lift shaft led her higher. She negotiated the rusted metal and came to rest on the small corrugated roof.

At eight storeys, the old office block was the tallest building in TC, with the lift shaft that jutted above its roof officially the highest point. Max settled there with her feet dangled over the edge, waiting for dawn and feeling the rise and fall of the corrugations dig in with the slightest movement. Usually the only introspection Max liked was prompted by standing on the very edge of the Needle, and even then her moments of reflection were brief events followed by self-indulgent wallowing or nostalgic regret. Now every moment she had to herself seemed fraught with self-analysis, minus the adrenaline rush, so she threw herself into her duties and avoided as much as possible the lingering feeling that everything had been knocked out of whack.

It was Mole who had first called it the prophecy, with no small amount of sarcasm, in the aftermath of the siege at Jam Pony. The term had stuck, despite Max's reflexive scepticism and the heavy scorn she'd been heaping against it every chance she could get. Now it was etched deep into her eidetic memory, replaying over and over again:

_"When the shroud of death covers the face of the earth, the one whose power is hidden will deliver the helpless."_

After she'd kicked detective Clemente and the rest of Seattle's finest out of TC, after Logan had brought her a cup of coffee and she'd finally gotten a moment to herself, she'd remembered the prophecy and how grave Logan had been when he'd recited it, and actually laughed out loud. It all sounded so dumb and cryptic that she'd could've imagined it immortalised in bumper sticker form for spiritual types to slap on electric hybrid cars with crystals hanging from the rear view mirrors. By the time she'd waved Logan out of TC and started planning how the transgenics were going to live out the sunrise, the prophecy had been the last thing on her mind.

Except it had never really left, prompted into consciousness like that one annoying song she didn't even like. The musical drive through came with a complimentary B-side of all the rest of the shit she was trying real hard not to think about. Ames White, the son of the man who had made her and member of the thousand year old breeding cult, had tried pretty hard to kill her because he thought her genes were even more special than the already special kind of strange in the Manticore gene pool. Her skin wouldn't stop breaking out in weird runic tattoos, White and Dr George from the CDC were both in agreement that her junkless DNA was one of a freakin' kind, and Renfro had jumped in front of a bullet meant for her before using her dying breath to tell her to find Sandeman. Yeah. And apparently she was supposed to save the world. Only Logan's insistence that she send him each new string of Minoan so he could help her find out what the hell it all meant had ensured that he got his daily email with photos attached and that she didn't use the same memory trick Zack had used to forcibly forget the whole damn thing.

The sky had lightened considerably by the time Max rolled off the roof with a groan. The echoes that had begun to bounce up the stairwell paused at the noise. Max dropped back to the roof and rested an elbow on the ledge of the brick balustrade as the echoes started up again.

The footsteps stopped, the fire door opened, and Alec looked out at her. His eyes wandered warily over the roof. "Don't tell me you're brooding again."

Max twisted back to her view of TC. "Got a lot to brood about. If you're looking to join in, sorry - I was here first."

The door shut. "So? When Armstrong planted a flag on the moon, you know what he didn't say? 'Sides, I thought you claimed this dump for all of Freak Nation. There was a speech and everything." He put both hands on the balustrade and looked out at the view Max had, then turned and leant his back against it instead, taking in the opposite perspective. "Nice place. Got a real 'fortress of solitude' vibe. Grab some whiskey, maybe a hammock in the corner, you could have yourself a real pity party."

The flippancy had her blowing out her breath. "How'd you find me, anyway?"

"Josh."

"'Course."

"He came to find me. He was worried about you." He affected a casual tone. "Also, there was mention of someone making a target of themselves on the roof at Finney's. Did you know this is the only point in TC that all three of the Colonel's snipers can get a bead on? "

There was a slight annoyance under that last bit, and Max could imagine the moment Josh's concern had led him to interrupt the rest Alec had planned after they had returned from the sewers, maybe even during the shower he'd been waxing lyrical about during their long tramp back from the National Guard's camp, if his still-damp hair was any indication.

Max just shrugged. She'd been sure the Colonel's word, as long as the transgenics kept up their side of the bargain, would hold - and she'd searched out all three snipers in minutes, anyway. The last she'd spied lying on his stomach on a table, eye fitted to his scope and barely discernible through the darkened window of an apartment building to the east. Having watched him watch her for a good two minutes, she'd raised a hand and given him a wave. The sniper melted away and hadn't reappeared. "Lucky we worked out that deal with Colonel, then, otherwise they'd be turning us both into pinatas. That's gonna suck for whoever's on clean-up duty."

Alec grimaced. "Okay. Clearly you've got something on your mind. I'm gonna go straight for the obvious and guess this about the prophecy."

Max snorted. "What, some crystal-ball fantasy about a shroud of death and delivering the helpless? I've got a couple of weird tattoos. Doesn't mean I'm the cosmic billboard for all humanity."

Alec gave her a sidelong glance. "Just a little more vehemence there and I might believe you."

"How do we know Logan got it right, anyway?" Max held out an arm, turned it over to the newest batch of runes. "These could be directions to Disneyland or the take out menu for Wonton House."

"Yeah, 'cause Sandeman would go to the trouble of encoding dim sum and the crispy chicken in your DNA."

"He created all the weirdos in here. Who knows what other stuff he messed up with his frankenscience."

Alec turned sideways against the balustrade, looking at her intently. "First mention of the prophecy you get angry then go all broody, like you can't decide between one or the other." She snorted more loudly. "Hey, don't think I haven't noticed. The others too, only they don't know you as well as as I do, so they just think it's Max's new crown bringing out the best of the bitch in her. Mole… well, you could ascend into the sky with wings and a halo and he still won't be laying palm leaves at your feet any time soon. He's just pushing buttons. Me? I think it's about the prophecy."

"It's not about the prophecy."

"Alright." He turned back, stretching his legs out and settling further into his lean against the balustrade. "Say it was… you know you could talk to me about it, right?"

He said it in an offhand manner, as if his seeming casualness about the whole thing could make Max any more pliant. He must've known her better than she thought, because if he'd attached any of the seriousness that Logan had to the subject she'd have bailed already. "Yeah." An annoyed sigh. "I know."

Alec gave a slight nod and joined her in her vigil, a silent but solid presence by her side as she watched the dawn.

It reminded her of when she'd laid down her wisdom that love sucked, and they'd sat together on top of the Space Needle in reflective, miserable silence. Except this time the misery had that goddamn, never ending soundtrack.


End file.
